Downports and landing non streamlined ships.

The original black globe in 79 High Guard was very much like the Langston Field.
I checked the '79 docs from my FFE CD, and it's an all-or-nothing field in the description:

Force Field generators project a barrier which prevents transit of anything but undifferentiated energy. This energy is absorbed, giving the field a black globe ap-pearance, and stored in on-board capacitors. Because the barrier prevents all transit across it, a ship with its black globe force field on cannot maneuver nor can it com-municate or detect enemy forces. In addition, if the field is overloaded, the drives may detonate, and the barrier drop, rendering the ship vulnerable to enemy fire. Ships using black globe are quite vulnerable if outnumbered, as they can be attacked easily when the globe is turned off.

It would also prevent any sort of laser morse code (though arguably it mentions nothing about being able to sense any energy being added, but I think the v5 Traveller explanation was done for the coolness factor rather than keeping with the idea. For something that is supposed to absorb all energy, using a laser to communicate through it seems a bit of a cheat. Langston fields actually allowed for penetration, albeit at very, very low velocities, thus most weapons were rendered pointless.

The idea of flickering got added in a later edition, as were white globes.
 
You need to look at the combat matrices as well as the description, you can actually hit through the globe.
Where are the rules for overloading the black globe in HG 79...
 
You need to look at the combat matrices as well as the description, you can actually hit through the globe.
Where are the rules for overloading the black globe in HG 79...
I did. It's the same explanation for all the weapon types (sand, beam, PA, meson and missile). Basically if it's up there is a DM. If it's down you ignore it.

This table uses two-dice throws to determine penetration of outer ship defenses (sand and black globe) and, if successful, impact with the target’s hull. Die roll mod-ifications for relative computer size and range apply. In addition, a negative DM is called for if the firing ship has a black globe generator in operation at any time dur-ing the combat round.

Oh, and it appears the flicker rate was introduced in HG '80 version.
 
So you can hit a ship with a black globe in place, and there are no rules for overloading the black globe, which is why the Battle of Two Suns played out as it did for the Allamu. They are even called force fields in the construction chapter. More similarity with the Langston Field then the Black Globe generators of HG80 and onwards.
 
So you can hit a ship with a black globe in place, and there are no rules for overloading the black globe, which is why the Battle of Two Suns played out as it did for the Allamu. They are even called force fields in the construction chapter. More similarity with the Langston Field then the Black Globe generators of HG80 and onwards.
I'm not sure what you mean by "there are no rules for overloading the black globe". They store energy fired from an attacker in their capacitors, and the ship can use the energy for whatever it wants, including shooting back at the enemy who shot them. But if you overload the capacitors the energy is released, resulting in heavy damage or destruction of the ship.
 
Where are those rules written in HG 79? HG 79 has no rules for energy points, or capacitors, or transferring energy to weapons or overloading - they all appear in HG80.
 
Where are those rules written in HG 79? HG 79 has no rules for energy points, or capacitors, or transferring energy to weapons or overloading - they all appear in HG80.
It's on page 28 of HG 79. At least according to my FFE CD file. I didn't go look in the paper version.
 
Nope, that is a description of what may happen, but no rules are provided for how it actually works in the combat system.

How many damage results can a black globe take before it overloads?

How do you store energy in "capacitors", where are they in the design sequence and how many hits can they store?

They don't appear until HG80.

I don't know why this has taken up so much of this discussion thread - the original Black Globe force field of HG79 is an obvious copy of the Langston Field.

Can you damage a ship through the filed/globe? yes and yes

Can you overload it and destroy the ship? yes and yes.

Can you see out? no and no

Is it a recovered technology from a previous age? yes and yes
 
HG79 introduces the concept of black globes, HG80 clarifies the rules. I wasn't arguing for which point GDW realized they left out important aspects of the rules (a regular theme in Traveller publications). The rules were there in the original publication - however they weren't very clear. Essentially they treated the 79 black globe as enhanced sand defenses - having - DM's if the globe is up to hit the ship.

The HG'80 edition states in the front cover - "This book is a substantially improved and re-typeset edition of High Guard Traveller Book 5, which originally appeared in 1979. It contains additions, corrections, and changes to the starship design and combat rules (pages 17 to 52)." HG80 substantially changes how black globes are treated and, as you pointed out, put in the actual rules that clarified what it meant to overload the capacitors. They also added in the flicker capabilities as well as describing how the energy functions work.
 
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